


command me to be well

by devastatedbeta (PatriciaR)



Series: ain't no smoke [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant up to S3, F/M, Gen, Isaac POV, Non graphic mentions of child abuse, Stream of Consciousness, hurt/comfort?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 15:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3452156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatriciaR/pseuds/devastatedbeta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Isaac is left alone with his thoughts for too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	command me to be well

**Author's Note:**

> Isaac references to his father abusing him, but it's not graphic and more about the emotional impact it had on him. This is set kind of before “my dreams don't match my pay“ but I wrote it later and yeah.. (not beta-read, sorry)

It was easy to think about life as if it was only theory. It was easy to look at a situation and see a solution, in comparison to applying that solution when your entire upbringing wired you to do anything but that. When, in fact, not only your abusive father, but the entire world seemed happy and content to see you struggle. Either because they thought he deserved the pain, Isaac had contemplated, or maybe because they thought he deserved it for being alive, or because they thought that life was pain and everyone had their burden to shoulder - as if he somehow sat there, thinking he was entitled to happiness anyways, or as if that meant his pain was meaningless.

Out of context, Isaac wouldn't have been bothered by it. If all they'd done was standing there and thinking he deserved the pain and abuse. Theoretically he knew better, but in his heart, it was hard not to agree, and he didn't hold it against strangers to think the same things he did. (He frankly didn't have the time to bother.)

But it bothered him that they stood there and judged him guilty, judged this the fit punishment, and then stood there and judged him for accepting it as his due, too. That they assumed he wanted different, and founded any discussion on their profound knowledge of human nature.

What was it that put them in the position to do so? What put them in the position to stand there and glare at him for living? To pretend he was a slacker, a psychopath, a freak, a loser? How could they pretend he was a victim of circumstance when it fit them, then say that he had always had the choice to do something about it when it didn't? Forget the talk about how a teenager should try and stand up to his father -and that they'd certainly make sure to judge him for being an ungrateful son had he in fact done it, or that no one had ever supported or encouraged him when they saw him being hit, and they had- but couldn't they at least make up their minds, instead of always using the rhetoric that worked best against him in a specific moment even though it denied all other claims of misbehaviour they had decided he must have commited before?

Now he had pack. A family of sorts, a bunch of misfits, as his father would have called them, and he thought about what to do about it. What could he, really? How could he make sure they'd survive? He thought about his options, endlessly, really, and nothing resulted in the desisive calmness he so desperately wanted.

He resented them, sometimes. It was unfair, he knew. He was doing what everyone was doing to him. He resented them based on what he thought they might do. He was working on it.. but that was the thing about the past. It wasn't really over. It claimed you, it shaped you, and it made sure to fucking haunt you every chance it got.

And so he wondered, day after day, what would happen if he misbehaved. Which was hard to think about, because every member had another idea of misbehaving. Scott would think about immoral behaviour, Lydia about anything that put them in a bad spot in power-plays, Allison anything that drew attention to the fact they were werewolves, whatever. He knew he would falter one day. He knew that he wouldn't always be able to predict what might bother them, and to what degree. He had started testing. Seeing where everyone's lines were, how to avoid crossing them, how to make them need him enough to overlook if he did something they didn't like. 

He'd gone from one dependence to another, he knew. He'd been dependending on his father, in many ways, but he'd always dreamed of leaving.. of course, he didn't really have the confidence to think life would be treating him any better (and in reality, it hadn't, had it?) but he had thought about things to do, vaguely. He could have moved, and tried to make up for what he had done. He could have prevented someone from doing his mistakes, maybe. Maybe he could have lived in a cave. Maybe he could have been.. something. Someone? He didn't know. He had never dared to think about it too much. He was still feeling ungrateful when he did. He was still thinking about his father, about how he had cried and cried. How it had destroyed him. How he had tried, in the beginning. How he had come to Isaac at night, sat at his bed, apologised and cried over and over again. He knew what therapists would say about that. That Isaac was making up excuses for him. Trying to make him more sympathetic so he could hold on to old ideas about family or love, but whatever the reasons, whenever he thought about him, there was a cluster of emotions he couldn't identify, and they stopped him, as they had stopped him when he had stumbled, trying to toe around his father.

But now.. he was still dependent. Maybe that was his purpose in this life. Maybe he was to be dependent on the people around him, worse and worse, so he would accept that there was never going to be freedom for someone like him, and maybe for anyone. Maybe when Cora looked at him and he saw skies and oceans in her eyes, it was an illusion he was supposed to see through. Maybe he was supposed to reject her hands, when they held him close. Maybe he was supposed to take a step away from feeling air enter his lungs. 

He didn't know. 

He was so strongly rejecting the idea of being bound to anyone, so strongly rejecting how badly he wanted it, so desperate to understand what he needed - whether it was him being a werewolf that made him need, whether that should influence his decisions.. And he thought that maybe he was supposed to accept Cora's hands.

Maybe he should accept that _she_ might accept what _he_ might willingly offer, and maybe it wasn't dependence, but the freedom to chose that caged him. 

But whatever he was supposed to think, or do, or hope, or fear, it was only easy and comforting to think about it as a theory. To think about it as if a solution might be just around the corner. So easy to speak about it like that, as if it wasn't the bleak, devastating thing it truly was, because he knew no conversation would really mend him, or anyone, from what had happened. He knew, in his blood, that there would always be a shadow that would cling to them. 

And he was terrified to be holding someone's hand when letting go could mean them seeing the sun and enjoying its warmth.

And he was still shaking his head when he thought of what Cora had told him, devastated beyond repair that she would give him those words. "Usefulness doesn't give you worth," she had said, and he had been terrified, so terrified of whatever might follow, until it had, and he'd been too confused about what she suggested, because in theory, it made sense, but it in his heart, it didn't. "You are worth the world, no matter how useful you are. You are worth risking things. You are worthy of love, and care, and friendship. You deserve happiness and contentment. Not because you jump in front of bullets meant for others, but because you are a person, and there is nothing you've done that negates it."

And for a moment, he was disappointed, in himself, in her, for thinking those words might save him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been writing a Cora/Isaac story for a while, always deleting and adding things, and realised that I would never finish it if I didn't post this drabble just to see if it worked for the narrative of the story. Added this to the other Isaac/Cora thing I wrote, but this is actually set before "my dreams don't match my pay", I think? Too much coffee, too little sleep. Everything is blurry.. help..


End file.
